


Meet Me In the Middle

by Ladaghast



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26593594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladaghast/pseuds/Ladaghast
Summary: Even twelve years after saving her baby brother from the heart of the Labyrinth, Sarah Williams can't help but worry for Toby's safety. But Sarah's worst fears come back to haunt her when Toby begs her to help his friends, who have vanished without a trace. Someone is wishing children away, and the Labyrinth isn't giving them back.As more kids disappear, one by one, Sarah will venture once more into the Labyrinth, determined to end things once and for all. Even if that means bringing down the Goblin King himself.But something's different this time around. Is the Goblin King truly responsible for the lost kids? Or is there something more at work?
Relationships: Jareth & Sarah Williams, Jareth/Sarah Williams
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Once More With Less Feeling

"Tone it back a bit, Kevin. This is a fifty-person theater, not the Orpheum."

Iago's pout was so big that Sarah could see the sheen of his bottom lip from the back row of the theater. She jotted a quick note into her script and waved the cast on.

Othello and Desdemona were chuckling from the edges of the stage, but they'd get their turns soon enough. Charlie tended to flub his lines in the beginning of act 2, and Jess was playing Desdemona a bit more combative than Shakespeare's text really allowed. Sarah sympathized with the urge, but a community theater production for the elderly patrons of the town wasn't the place for a feminist re-interpretation.

"Though," Sarah murmured, "that might be a fun challenge."

A loud crash ripped Sarah's attention back to the stage, where one of the scenery flies lay crumpled in the middle of center stage.

Sarah bolted from her seat and towards the stage. "Everyone okay?"

Charlie, bless his forgiving heart, gave a shaky thumbs up. "We're good!"

"What the hell, Mike?!" Kevin shouted. A muffled apology came from rails above the stage. A tech, her eyes filled with horror, rushed to her fallen prop and began looking it over for damage. Even Sarah could tell the plywood frame was cracked beyond repair. Kevin continued cursing out the ceiling, while the rest of the cast turned to Sarah.

Right, well, this was when directing was a complete drag.

Sarah huffed. "Mike! A word!"

The prop was light and probably wouldn't have done too much harm if it had hit anyone, but if the lighter props were falling, the heavy stuff was now a major concern. Not that Kevin couldn't do with a smack in the head now and again, but the community theater didn't really have a budget for hospital bills. Or lawsuits. Or worse.

"I think that's a sign to call it a day, while everyone is still uninjured." Sarah pointed at the fly. "Except for the crew, I'm releasing everyone to the wilds. Go home, get some rest, unwind. We’ll sort this out so it won’t. Happen. Again.”

This last bit was directed at the rafters, where Mike, half-hidden by the darkness, was immobilized with stress.

Which meant that Sarah’s eye was immediately drawn to the tiny figure clambering across the rigging. She had almost convinced herself it was a rat when it turned its head and waved a gnarled hand at her.

Sarah wasn't sure if this made things better or worse.

No one else seemed to notice the little trespasser as the crew gathered on the stage and the cast picked up their bags from the front row, Kevin still grousing loudly to anyone within earshot. Sarah had half a mind to send the crew home too and track down the goblin, maybe interrogate it a little about the fly, but no. This was the human world, and humans made mistakes that couldn’t always be pinned on mischievous gremlins. Though, looking at the somber crew members, it did mean she could take it easy on them. A little.

“Hey, Sarah!” Jess’ voice boomed across the theater. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Sarah turned to the lobby doors, where a young boy shuffled past Jess.

“Toby?” Sarah frowned. “Is everything okay?”

Her little brother glanced up at the remaining members of the troupe and nodded his head, then changed his mind and shrugged.

That was all Sarah needed to see. She was already halfway up the aisle when she remembered the crew was still waiting for her reprimand on the stage. “Mike-"

Mike pulled his shoulders back, his face serious. “It won’t happen again.”

That would have to be enough for tonight. Sarah nodded. “At ease. We’ll talk about this on Monday.”

The moment she reached Toby, Sarah wrapped her baby brother into a tight hug. He squirmed away, like every 13-year-old kid did, hitching his backpack strap back onto his shoulder.

"Is something wrong?" Sarah asked.

Toby glanced pointedly at the crew, who were getting an earful from Mike as they packed up the remaining set pieces.

Sarah took the hint. "Let me gather up my stuff first. Then we'll talk."

By the time Sarah had located the last of her scattered notes and crammed them into her bag, the theater had cleared out and Toby was perched in an aisle seat, his feet pressed against the chair in front of him.

Sarah smacked his leg playfully. “I’m the one who’ll have to wipe your footprints off, you know.”

Toby put his legs down, but he didn’t smile. Sarah’s stomach, already tight with worry, clenched.

“You didn’t walk here by yourself, did you?” she asked. “Did Dad drop you off?”

Toby shook his head. “I wasn’t alone.”

A shadow flickered under Toby’s seat. Sarah craned her head, and a pair of bright eyes blinked up at her.

Sarah sighed. “The goblins don’t count, Toby. They’re unpredictable.”

The shadow hissed in indignation, but Sarah ignored it.

Toby shrugged again. “They’ll protect me from kidnappers, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

That was exactly what Sarah was worried about. Three kids from Toby’s middle school had gone missing, all at once. The police thought that it was some kind of runaway pact, but, still, the town was on edge.

“Besides,” Toby muttered. “I don’t think an adult took them.”

Sarah frowned. “What do you mean? You think they ran away?”

Toby shook his head. He frowned at the ground in the way he did when he was trying to figure something out. Sarah bit her tongue, trying to be patient, but anxiety swirled around her head and picked up every loose fear all at once. If the kids didn’t run away, who took them? If not an adult, another kid? A teenager? She knew that Satanists weren’t really a thing, but maybe this time there actually was a death cult in town, kidnapping preteens for blood sacrifices. She made a mental note to talk to Dad about making sure Toby wasn’t wandering around by himself. There was only so much his little protectors could do in the human world.

“The goblins talk about it, you know. What happened.”

Sarah's thoughts screeched to a halt. Toby watched her from the corner of his eye, expectant, as she slowly pulled her brain back into working order. She’d never really talked to Toby about how the goblins started coming around. How was she supposed to explain that his big sister wished him away to the Goblin King when he was just a baby?

Toby gently kicked at a chair, leaving a small scuff. “I get it, and you got me back, so it’s cool, I guess? I don’t remember. Kind of like how Mom forgot me in the grocery store that one time and she had to come back to get me? Like, I think it’s funny, but she still freaks out when Dad mentions it. So, I figure it’s kind of like that?”

A vision of an endless maze flashed through Sarah’s head. Stairs going in every unimaginable direction. A baby who kept vanishing before her eyes. A glittering ball and a breathless dance. A pair of mismatched eyes and cocky grin.

Nope, not him. She wasn’t thinking about him right now. Sarah shoved memories down and took a deep, grounding breath. “Yeah, I guess it’s kind of like that.”

Toby smirked. “But worse.”

Bouncing, feathery heads bounced across the backs of her closed eyelids. “Yes, objectively worse.” Sarah ran her fingers through her hair, her face hot with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I didn’t apologize sooner.”

“It’s okay.” Toby poked his sister's arm, hard. “But you do owe me for life.”

Sarah smiled and poked him back in the cheek. “I’ve saved your butt more times than I can count, and you have goblin friends forever. I say I’ve almost broken even.”

The joking mood quickly guttered out as Toby's face dropped again. “Yeah, well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Um, okay? I’m a little lost, though. What’s this all about?”

Toby squirmed, gathering his legs under his chin. Normally Sarah would have thrown a mini fit about shoes on the theater upholstery, but he looked so uncomfortable that she let it slide.

“It’s about my friends.” Toby grit his teeth, and Sarah realized he was trying not to cry. Sarah wrapped her arm around him, pulling his head against her shoulder as he struggled to breath evenly. A small hand reached from the shadows under his chair and patted his sneakers. Or it was trying to tug at his laces, but Sarah decided to give it the benefit of the doubt this time.

“They didn’t run away. I know they didn’t. They would have told me.” Toby rubbed at his face. “And it doesn’t make sense. We were supposed to go to that sci-fi movie, at the new theater. Isla was super excited because her parents had never let her go with just friends before. Benny was talking about it all week, saying all this stuff about the special effects. And then they were just… gone. Diego didn’t even take any of his Pokémon cards, not even the ones that were, like, worth money.”

“I didn’t know you knew them.” Sarah’s heart broke as her little brother fought back sobs. “I’m so sorry, Toby. I’m sure the police will find them.”

Toby pulled away, shaking his head. “That’s the thing. I don’t think they can. Isla, Benny, and Diego... I don't think they're here anymore.”

“Oh, Toby, I don’t know what to—"

Toby lurched from his seat and paced the aisle. He tugged at his ear, a habit he shared with his mom when they were really upset. “No, like, they’re not dead. But I don’t think they’re here. And I don’t think they were kidnapped, exactly. It’s more like…”

Just as Sarah was about to get up, to hug him and try to calm him down, Toby stopped dead in his tracks. He was so still and quiet, it took Sarah a moment to realize that she had stopped breathing, like even the force of the smallest breath would shatter her little brother into pieces.

Toby looked up, meeting Sarah's worried gaze for the first time since he walked into the theater. “I think that someone wished them away. And I think you might be able to get them back.”


	2. Just Desserts

Toby was quiet the entire ride home. Sarah wanted to say something reassuring, to promise him that everything was all right, but she wouldn’t lie to him. She’d already told him there was nothing she could do.

Though, based on how hard he slammed her car’s door as she dropped him off, maybe it would have been better if she had lied after all.

His goblin stayed behind, crammed under her seat like a scared Chihuahua, growling at every bump in the road. Sarah sighed. This was what being Champion of the Labyrinth was about. It was about escorting wayward goblins home through the portal in her closet. It was about seeing her old friends, human or not, from time to time and going on with her day. The Labyrinth had already shown her what she needed to see. She’d put away the teddy bears and the pictures of her mom. She’d gone to college and joined theater troupes and come back home, not successful but not a failure either. She’d moved on with her life, and she was done with the Labyrinth.

Completely. Absolutely. No doubt about it.

Right?

Sarah pulled into her complex’s parking garage and maneuvered into her designated spot. Maybe she could ask Dad to tug on some of his connections at the police precinct to move the investigation along. Get Toby into therapy. She definitely needed to hang out with him more if she hadn’t realized that it was his friends who were missing. It was devastating that she didn’t know who his friends were at all.

Sarah took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. Some Champion she was.

A sharp nail jabbed Sarah in her calf. She jolted, almost kicking the shadowy goblin in the face as it shoved its head from under her seat. Its curved, pointed teeth glinted in the car’s dimming interior lights.

“I did a good job,” it crowed.

Sarah smiled sweetly. “Yes, you did a very good job. You handled the scary car ride like a pro.”

The goblin’s triumph quickly gave way to a scowl. “No,” it hissed. “Not the big metal rumble thing.”

“No? Well, you did a great job with that, too.”

That got the grin back. Goblins were always pretty weak to compliments. Probably since their master was such a rude, cocky, hot—

Nope. Wasn’t going to go there.

It took a few minutes for the goblin to twist the rest of the way from under the driver’s seat, involving some tearing noises that Sarah was really not happy about. It scrabbled out of the car, trailing some upholstery as it shot for the door to the apartment complex.

The goblin tapped its foot impatiently until Sarah caught up with it. “What will you give me?”

Sarah found the right key on her ring and jiggled it into the sticky lock. “For what? The car? I’m already giving you a free ride through my closet, but I can probably get you a snack before you go. Do you like pudding?”

The foot tapping turned into an outright stamp. “No, no, no!” it shrieked. But the goblin paused its tantrum, cocking its head. “Yes, pudding, but no, not car!”

Finally, Sarah got the door open. The goblin scurried up the stairs, chattering angrily. All the goblins knew not to make too much noise in the hallways. Sarah wasn’t sure if it was survival instinct or just a courtesy to her, but, either way, it saved a lot of questions from the neighbors.

Still, the little guy was visibly seething by the time they reached her apartment. Sarah had barely unlocked the door and opened it before the goblin burst like an overfilled balloon.

“The boy!” it whined. “I protected the boy. Just like the King That Was said to! I did a good, good job!”

Sarah quickly shut the door behind them. “The boy? Do you mean Toby?” The King That Was? Who the hell was that?

The little creature sniffled, its nose starting to run. “I kept him from the bad, bad things. Just like he said you’d want.”

Sarah had no idea what the goblin was talking about. Maybe he’d scared off some bullies? There’d been that incident a couple of years ago that involved some older kids getting chased by “dogs,” but Sarah had talked to all the goblins she could find about refraining from biting the neighborhood kids. Unless they really, _really_ deserved it.

“Who is 'he?' Did you scare off someone making fun of Toby again? I know you want to help, but Toby can’t keep depending on you guys and your tetanus teeth to solve his human problems.”

“No! Not humans! The bad things, the bad things! The ones that took the little humans away.”

Her blood froze. “The little… Toby’s friends? Wait, slow down, did goblins take some kids?”

The goblin was practically wailing. “Nooooo, not us! We didn’t take! The bad things!”

Sarah’s head whirled. This didn’t make any sense. Why didn’t goblins ever make sense? She took a deep, steadying breath. This was normal, this was expected, at least for goblins. If the Labyrinth and its denizens wouldn’t, couldn’t, make sense, then she would have to just roll with it.

Scooping the now-sobbing creature up, she bounced him up and down as she walked them to the kitchen. It was almost like when she would soothe Toby as a baby, though Toby never had craggy, hairy skin that flaked onto her fingers.

“There, I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m sorry. I never did thank you, did I? I’ll get you your pudding, and you can tell me all about the bad things and how brave you were, okay?”

A deep voice chuckled. “I would hope my reward will be a bit more than a snack.”

Sarah shrieked. “What the f—”

The goblin howled, almost launching itself over the kitchen counter in its haste to get to the man standing in the middle of her living room. Sarah was so dead focused on grabbing for a kitchen knife that she almost didn’t process the creature’s pitiable sobs had evolved into joyous ones.

“King! King!” it screeched, clinging to the man’s leg. “I did just as you said, King! Did I do a good job?”

Jareth, King of the Goblins, scoffed. “You did an abominable job. I almost wish I had taken care of it myself.”

“Oh, King,” the goblin wept. “Such high praise.”

Sarah was reeling. The Goblin King was in her apartment. The Goblin King had _broken_ _into_ her apartment. And he was in slacks? How was this possible? In the dozen years since she had won back her brother, he had never shown up. Not when the goblins wreaked havoc on her prom, not when the portal followed her to college, not when she moved back home. He had faded into a fairytale villain, a half-forgotten dream that came back only when she left her mind wander too far. She had assumed that he couldn’t confront her because she beat him. But now he was in her apartment.

Maybe it was the weight of the knife in her hand that directed her thoughts back to one specific point.

When she spoke, her voice was rough and dark. “Where are the kids?”

The Goblin King used the bottom of his shoe to pry his groveling subject off of his leg. “What, no pleasantries? No, ‘it’s been so long, how about some tea?’ I admit that I could do with a cup, but perhaps—”

“Where. Are. The kids?”

Jareth smirked. “As single-minded as ever. It’s always about children when we meet.”

“Dammit, I am not screwing around.” Sarah marched into her living room. “Just in case we need a refresher: _you have no power over me_.”

To her faint surprise, the Goblin King took a step back, hands raised. “Yes, yes, I remember. Horribly bothersome words. I hope you understand how difficult you’ve made things for me.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pin on me, but I beat your game twelve years ago, and I am not interested in a rematch.” Sarah hadn’t realized that she was still holding the kitchen knife until it was under the Goblin King’s chin.

For a moment, they both looked shocked. The Goblin King’s mismatched eyes grew wide, then twinkled in amusement. Sarah realized he might actually be enjoying this. The goblin looked back and forth between them and began to cackle.

Sarah snapped out of it. “Third time’s the charm,” she said, her knife firm against the Goblin King’s throat. “Where are Toby’s friends?”

Jareth tilted his head, his smirk almost disappointed. “My dear Sarah. They’re in the Labyrinth, of course.”

Sarah resisted the urge to close her eyes in despair. Toby was right. Of course he was. She just hadn’t wanted him to be.

“Bring them back.”

That infuriating smirk was still fixed on his insufferable face. “That, I’m afraid, is beyond my reach.”

“I am not running your stupid Labyrinth again, Loser Lord. Bring them back. Now.”

“I assure you, you have nothing to fear from my Labyrinth. But I cannot bring the children back.”

Sarah scoffed. “You can’t or you won’t?"

Jareth pressed a finger to the knife and pushed. On pure protective instinct, Sarah dropped the knife, immediately cursing herself for letting go of the only weapon she had. She braced for… she didn’t really know what, for _something_ , but the Goblin King stayed where he was. He was examining his finger, which was turning red.

Blood. The Goblin King was bleeding.

Jareth looked over the cut with obvious intrigue and expectation. But whatever he was waiting for didn’t happen, and, for the first time since he’d appeared in her home, the Goblin King frowned.

Sarah balked. “Is that... Could I have just stabbed you in the beginning and been done with it?”

Jareth’s brow shot up. “No,” he said flatly. He curled his injured hand into a tight fist, squeezing a couple drops of blood onto Sarah’s floor. “And you wound me with your intent, my murderous Champion.”

Sarah had known from the beginning that the Labyrinth did not make sense. It was senseless by design, with Fieries that could play with their own guillotined heads, with doors that lied, and with a maze that shifted and changed with no rhyme nor reason. But in the middle of it all, there was always one thread of the expected. A single strand of predictability that Sarah clung to all the way to the center of the Labyrinth, where her brother was waiting to be saved from the villain. The Goblin King was the one thing in the Labyrinth that made a lick of sense.

But right now, he made no sense at all.

“Jareth.” Sarah spoke so softly it was almost a whisper, a deep, unshakable dread dawning on her. “Please. What is going on?”

The old Goblin King might have mocked her for saying please. He might have given her a riddle instead of a straight answer.

But the Goblin King was gone, and, instead, Jareth, the King That Was, was standing in her living room, dripping blood miserably onto her carpet. “The Labyrinth is no longer under my control. And you need to help me win it back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop, made it on time. It's very lightly edited, but hopefully I didn't miss too many mistakes. I had a lot of fun with this chapter! Hope you liked it!

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about Labyrinth fan fiction for years and never had the guts to write any, but today's the day. Or, at least, today is the caffeine-fueled night. If anyone enjoys my toe-dip into the fanfic world, I will be incredibly happy. Now to motivate myself to continue writing despite having no plan and the vaguest of outlines!
> 
> I'm shooting for a once-a-week update schedule on Mondays.


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